But Peggy was not so easily diverted from an idea or a purpose.
There was a characteristic line from her forehead to the end of her short, straight nose. Also she had a fashion of lifting her head and looking fearlessly ahead, as if she were contemplating something in the outside world, when in reality she was only thinking.
“Billy might help us,” she said suddenly. “He knows all the servants on the place and they like him better than they do the rest of us.”
And, without waiting for her aunt’s consent, Peggy disappeared.
She was gone a long time—so long that Mrs. Burton grew annoyed. She made her own bed and made it extremely well, having never forgotten this part of her Camp Fire education. She also wrote a note to her husband, who was on a tour in the West. She was just contemplating dressing and joining the others downstairs when Peggy came back. Billy was with her, and Billy bore the lost pocketbook.
His expression was odd, but it was Peggy about whom Polly felt suddenly frightened. Her usually brilliant color was gone, and her lips were in a hard line.
“Billy took your purse,” and then in a queer voice, “but please make him explain. I cannot.”
Billy laid the purse gently on his aunt’s knee and looked directly at her.
It chanced that Polly was sitting in a tall chair so that her eyes were on a level with the boy’s.
It had always been Polly’s impression that Billy was her favorite of her sister’s children; perhaps because he was not the favorite with his mother or father. And then undeniably he was a problem.